Carrie Johnson
Appearances
Up First from NPR
Justice Department Firings, Humanitarian Parole Ends, China And AI
At least a dozen people who work with special counsel Jack Smith got dismissal notices. That's according to two DOJ officials. Acting Attorney General James McHenry wrote the letters. He said he did not believe these officials could be trusted to faithfully implement the president's agenda because of their significant role in prosecuting the president.
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Justice Department Firings, Humanitarian Parole Ends, China And AI
Remember, Jack Smith brought two criminal cases against Donald Trump over January 6th and over classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Prosecutors moved to dismiss both cases after Trump won the election. And this purge is a big deal. One longtime lawyer told me he couldn't think of a time in modern DOJ history where a whole slew of prosecutors who worked on a particular case were dismissed.
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Justice Department Firings, Humanitarian Parole Ends, China And AI
Of course, Donald Trump had promised to fire Jack Smith, too, but Smith resigned before the inauguration.
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Justice Department Firings, Humanitarian Parole Ends, China And AI
You know, federal judges approved search warrants and other actions DOJ took in its two cases against Trump. Grand juries signed off on them. So prosecutors say it's not as if these lawyers were acting without checks and balances. But clearly, President Trump does not see it that way. He signed an executive order last week designed to root out what he calls weaponization of the government.
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Justice Department Firings, Humanitarian Parole Ends, China And AI
And the Supreme Court last year made clear that presidents have a lot of control over federal law enforcement. Now Donald Trump is using it. So what happens now to these prosecutors who worked with Jack Smith? Many of them are career civil servants who have job protection, so they could protest and eventually sue to challenge their firings, get back pay, get their jobs back.
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Justice Department Firings, Humanitarian Parole Ends, China And AI
But that could take a long time and could be very expensive for taxpayers who would wind up footing the bill if these fired officials win in court. That's exactly what happened with Andy McCabe, the deputy FBI director Trump's administration fired in his first term in office.
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Justice Department Firings, Humanitarian Parole Ends, China And AI
I'm hearing some of the most senior civil servants have been reassigned in recent days to work on a sanctuary city task force. The thinking is that's designed to get those people to quit. Yesterday, one of them did, the man who ran the public integrity unit. Lawyers who handle the environment, civil rights, national security, they've all been reassigned too.
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Justice Department Firings, Humanitarian Parole Ends, China And AI
Mary McCord worked in the Justice Department for nearly 25 years. She teaches at Georgetown University now.
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Justice Department Firings, Humanitarian Parole Ends, China And AI
McCourt says it seems like these people are being fired or reassigned because of fear they will not be loyal to Trump. She says that makes it easier for a president to misuse the Justice Department for his own retribution. NPR's Carrie Johnson, thank you for this reporting, Carrie. My pleasure.
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Zelenskyy in London, Gaza Ceasefire Status, Judicial Accountability
I've worked on this project for nearly a year. I talked with 42 people who are current or former employees of the federal courts, everyone from law clerks to court reporters to people in probation and public defender offices. They told me about bad experiences with more than two dozen judges. Those judges represent both major political parties. They're men and women who work all over the country.
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Zelenskyy in London, Gaza Ceasefire Status, Judicial Accountability
Well, let's start with the idea that the relationship between a federal judge and a law clerk can be pretty imbalanced. Judges have the power to make or break the career of a young lawyer with only a phone call or two. People told me they were afraid to report bullying or harassment by federal judges because the internal systems are so complicated.
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Zelenskyy in London, Gaza Ceasefire Status, Judicial Accountability
The consequences for them are huge, and there's really no guarantee those people can remain anonymous.
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Zelenskyy in London, Gaza Ceasefire Status, Judicial Accountability
Yes, I spoke with a former law clerk in Alaska. She moved there in 2020, and she had hoped the clerkship would jumpstart her career in the law. She was afraid to talk on tape, so we found a voice actor to share her words verbatim.
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Zelenskyy in London, Gaza Ceasefire Status, Judicial Accountability
That judge, Joshua Kindred, began to text her constantly, sometimes really personal things, and after she left her clerkship, she said he sexually assaulted her. The judge later said the encounter was consensual and said he had no, quote, sinister intent.
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Zelenskyy in London, Gaza Ceasefire Status, Judicial Accountability
Eventually, a court investigation found he created a hostile work environment for his clerks and had an inappropriately sexualized relationship with one of them. That judge resigned last July.
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Zelenskyy in London, Gaza Ceasefire Status, Judicial Accountability
The administrative office of the courts helps set policy for the court system and handles all kinds of administrative tasks. They said the changes they put in place since the MeToo scandals in 2017 are real and that they're working. They say they're continuing to make improvements and more people are using their systems to complain.
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Zelenskyy in London, Gaza Ceasefire Status, Judicial Accountability
But few of those complaints are actually about judges who behave badly. People who follow this system tell me those numbers are low because clerks are afraid to complain about judges and sometimes because clerks are discouraged from filing any paperwork at all.
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Zelenskyy in London, Gaza Ceasefire Status, Judicial Accountability
There are some Democrats in the U.S. House, like Norma Torres of California and Hank Johnson of Georgia, have been pushing for some change. Their bill to give judicial workers more legal protection died last year without any action from Congress.
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Zelenskyy in London, Gaza Ceasefire Status, Judicial Accountability
Thanks for having me.